


Young and Beautiful

by sundaysuicidedays



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Cancer, Character Death, Hospitals, M/M, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 02:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundaysuicidedays/pseuds/sundaysuicidedays
Summary: "Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?"-lana del ray, 2013





	Young and Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> warning; character death, mentions of triggering illnesses, possible triggering scenes. read at your own risk. I love you all.

tyler didn't have a very good chance of keeping his hair once the chemotherapy started. josh had dyed it countless times so he was losing hair already, but for some reason, seeing his bald head made him cry. he knew josh loved to run his hands through the soft brown locks and kiss him atop the head and he didn't want josh to think he was ugly. even when josh sat by tyler and stroked his arm and kissed his head and said he still thought tyler was the most beautiful boy in the world and he would love him forever. he still cried, telling himself not to blame his father for giving him the disease, but he cried and screamed nonetheless. the nurses seemed to have gotten used to the small boy crying in his bed now, or around the garden, sobbing to himself. he had gotten to the point where he was wheelchair bound, and he refused to let anybody but josh take him out. when he went for his chemotherapy one day, josh had been unable to get from his parents to the hospital in time and tyler screamed and cried until he threw up down himself. that was the first and only time the nurses took him anywhere without josh.

they spotted the cancer early. well, josh did. he happened to be taking a course which had just finished up about cancer, and he watched tyler for a few days before rushing him to the hospital. he had never smoked a cigarette in his life, yet his breathing was raspy, and he started coughing as violently as an old man who had smoke his whole life would. despite his new tablets which let him sleep, he was still unbelievably fatigued, and he had lost a dramatic amount of weight, although josh kept an eye on him every meal time. this worried josh the most - tyler was only seven stone at the time as he started losing weight and by the time the hospital diagnosed him with non-hodgkin lymphoma, the frail boy was already down to just above six stone. it made josh sick to the very pit of his stomach, watching his love go through so much pain at once. people always asked him or tyler what having cancer was really like, and the answer was the same for both of them. "pain." tyler would whisper, and josh would say solemnly. "just so much pain." that was the best way either of them could describe it. tyler spent his nights writhing in the sheets of his own duvet in the hospital, quietly sobbing and whimpering in pain, while he spent his days stretching and letting tears roll down his face and biting his lip till it bled to keep from screaming. it was at this time that they changed his chemo to the drug doxorubicin. the drug knocked him out and josh would spend an hour a day staring at his coma baby, hoping that, for at least an hour, tyler was out of pain. josh wanted to scream and scream at nurses, going crazy and shouting, "you could have stopped this! you should have given him the drug earlier!" but he stopped himself. that wouldn't help tyler. plus, the younger boys seemed perfectly content, however much he was wilting away like a crumbling tulip. he was okay with dying.

the chemo meant that hair started falling off on other parts of his body. his legs, for example. on good day, josh would run his hands up and down on them and tell him that he 'always knew tyler was a twink' and wink at the small boy. he would blush, and josh would grip his cheeks and kiss him harder than ever because he knew it was a good day. he also knew that this kiss may be their last and he wanted it to last more than anything. tyler would often wake up with bits of hair on his pillow, and it made him cry, remembering how he woke up once to find his hair completely shaven by his father. he wished he would have killed him with the scissors then. he regrets not doing so.

tyler's throat swelled up not long after his nightmare, and he was sure it was because of the excessive screaming, and he wasn't allowed to kiss josh anymore. he had a tube down his throat to eat and drink, and he couldn't speak. he communicated with a piece of paper, writing in shaking, aching hands, feeling like an old man. he hated having everybody run around him in the garden, while josh lightly kissed him on the forehead and smiled, talking to tyler, though he knew the smaller boy could not answer. he showed him pictures of the two boys at their high school prom, of them at the park, of them at the diner, of them kissing in front of the sunset. they were beautiful and although tyler cried, he knew it was a happy cry, as well as a lost cry. he would take his drugs in the garden, watching as josh made video edits of them. there were too many videos of them together at all, and tyler internally giggled when josh scrolled past the one of tyler jumping on josh's back. he fell straight off and josh fell on top of him, smirking before leaning down to kiss him. that was the night tyler lost his virginity and he had never felt happier. he remembered thinking, his legs hooked around josh's waist, sweaty forehead against his, shaking lips trailing down his trembling body, that this was the man he wanted to marry. he didn't care for anybody else, he wanted this one. he wanted this one.

josh watched from outside the window with numb fingers as the doctors sent tyler in for his chemotherapy. "josh...you have to understand that this was coming. we're sorry, but we're right." tyler wasn't to know what the doctor said to him that day, but he was told in his own way. he didn't cry, and was wheeled out, a tiny small playing on his pale lips. he held josh's hand as they made their way back to the ward, and didn't let go even as he slept. he wrote on josh's hand, with trembling fingers, 'I love you.' josh returned the favour and wrote on tyler's hand, tears dripping down his cheek. 'as I love you.' he sniffled and whimpered and was shocked to realise that tyler was stronger than he was. he wiped his eyes and helped tyler into bed, stroking his head, and kissed him gently. josh lay down next to him, fingers trailing on the boys pale skin. josh remembered when he was tan and teased josh for being like a ghost, but now josh was the tanner one. it just made the situation all too real for josh, and he held onto tyler as tightly as the fragile boy could take, crying violently. he cried and cried and then tyler joined in because _god_ _, he didn't want to die!_ he really did not want to die and he hoped that the sobs escaping his open mouth proved that to josh. he didn't want to leave him. he never wanted t leave him. he wants to marry josh and he wants to have children and he wants to feel josh's hands on his body again and he wants to hear josh's voice praising him again and then he realises that he won't ever kiss josh again properly, and they won't ever have sex again, and they won't ever take a shower together again and tyler passes out.

the doctors were right.

they said he was in a state of a coma, but josh knew better. he _was_ a doctor after all. his love was dying in front of him and he wouldn't wake up to say goodbye. he would just die on that table. no goodbye, no tears. nothing. he would just die. tyler joseph would never have a goodbye, his story wouldn't be plastered all over the news. their love story wouldn't be made into a book. tyler joseph would just die, with only josh to prove that he was worth anything in life. nobody else cared, but they needn't. tyler wasn't special. he was another boy, with another form of cancer.

even when josh was found dead next to tyler, tears still stained onto his cheeks, tyler was just another boy. josh's story was plastered all over the news and at his college, screaming at kids to get help and not commit suicide, because hell be damned if you take your _own_ life. for tyler, it didn't matter. he didn't kill himself, did he? why should his story be heard? he was just another boy.

he wasn't young and beautiful to anybody but josh. nobody saw him as a precious tulip (they were his favourite), only as a paralysed boy with a tube down his throat. he wasn't young or beautiful to anybody but josh and he was just another boy. he wasn't cared for by anybody else, and the one person that could have told his story died at the same time as his lover did. nobody cared for him and his story was never special. he wasn't a damsel in distress and his story did not deserve to be heard and published.

tyler joseph was just another boy, with just another form of cancer.


End file.
